mandag 30. juni 2014

I often have amazing time at cons and love to look back at all the stuff that happened when I get back to my normal life. So here are a few thought from DreamHack Summer 2014.I got to hold a cosplay panel for Riot Games, that was amazing. I also wrote a sum up of the topics I talked about here.

I also had a lovely interview with Deumovochka Cosplay from the Russian League of Legends cosplay group, so nice and I have to check out what's happening in Russia cosplay wise. I almost only cosplay in Scandinavia, I must broaden my horizon.

Me and Deumovochka Cosplay

And the cosplay competition was a chapter on it's own. They had great prizes and awesome judges, both Yaya Han and Kamui. You can watch the entire cosplay show and prize ceremony here, I even won a prize, gosh ^^

More about the winners on the DreamHack webpage. Look at this incredible gang, so proud to be a part of this group.

And I took like 1000 selfies with all kind of amazing people, these are the ones I took.

Top left Yaya HAn and Kamui, top right Cosplayer Tine Marie Riis (SC2 vs LoL) Bottom left Nova and Sarah cosplayers, bottom right LiquidSnute, one of the worlds best starcraft 2 players. And if this wasn't so amazing already, the producers for the StarCraft 2 tournament wanted to do an interview with me before the finale, on live Swedish television. You can see the interview on twitch here. And I really want to do a Kerrigan costume now. Last I got a photo of me and the winner of the SC contest, TeaJa (while I'm wearing a Razor head set) They actually gave me a headset later, so I'm super happy.

fredag 20. juni 2014

During DreamHack Summer 2014 I was asked by Riot Games to hold a panel about cosplay construction, and I was very honored to do so. And here is a sum up of my key points from the presentation which is also a great introduction to cosplay making in itself. So if you are neew to cosplay, this can be helpful.

The panel was not be a step by step showcase, but
more a overall introduction to some methods and techniques I have used in general. You can find all the step by step tutorials here on my blog though, e.g. for the Vi cosplay

Because I
learned so much from my Vi costume I used it as my main example.

Planning

I could hold
a panel about planning alone; to get a costume done in time for an event you need to
know what to do and how much time you got. There is nothing more frustrating and stressful than
sitting at your hotel room the night before a con or competition and finishing
your costume.

Plan out which parts must be finished at which time, so that
paint can dry and adjustments can be made. And try the entire costume on before
the con. Suddenly something doesn't fit together, you can’t bend your knee or go to the toilet. Then you will have time to fix these issues.

And cosplay
is an expensive hobby even though you try to use cheap materials. Mistakes
happen, the wig comes in the wrong shade and you needed way more fabric than
you thought. Find out how much you can spend on your costume, so you don’t sit
with a half-finished cosplay and no money to finish it. You can always upgrade
it later; I do that all the time.

And travel.
Are you going to bring your cosplay on a plane? If you have a large bow, a sword or a staff you
can construct them so they can be taken apart. And using a shampoo bottle can fix that issue. I attached the bottle to one piece and the cork to the
other. This way I can easily screw it back together.Reference photos

Another
part of planning is to gather as many reference photos as possible. You might
also get a lot of variation between in-game and splash art. Only If you are
entering a contest make sure to send in the photo that you costume is built
after ;)

Go big.

I say,
always start with the most difficult part, the part that you have no idea how to build.
Because if you can’t build that one difficult and essential parts, then it would be
no point in building the rest of the costume. Even Yaya Han said the same thing during her and Kamui's Q&A at DreamHack.

For Vi the hardest part would be the gloves.

Planning the gloves

And that
leads us to even more planning. The large gloves are a bit incomprehensible to
start building, but if we divide them into smaller parts, you can easily get an
overview. I divided the hand into fingers, the back of the hand, the core and
the knuckles were all the pieces would be attached together.The pieces

MaterialsSo we know
what parts to make, but which materials can we use.Cardboard

Being a cosplayer doesn't mean that you are a professional costume
maker. But a creative cosplayer can make amazing props out of almost
everything. These are
all props and costume parts I have made using cardboard. You need to treat it
to get the finish you want, cover it with glue to make it more water resistant,
smooth it out with plaster or filler and so on. The problem with card board is that you won’t
get durable props, they will break after being used for a while.

The Vi
gloves are mainly build out of cardboard, because I needed them to be light
weight and cheap. Paper mache is also a great solution for making a base, the
chest armor and splicer mask is covered with strips of newspaper dipped in a
mix of water and glue.

Expanding foam

Ideal to use if you want big props, as the
foam releases gas which makes it expand. The Vi pauldrons are made this way. I
started with paper mache over a balloon to get the shape. Covered
it with foam, when dry (and wait until the next day) carve out your shape. It
will be a lot of air bubbles, so the entire prop need to be covered in paper
mache, filler or cardboard to get a smooth surface.

Foam mats

This is a
recurring cosplay material. I haven’t worked so much with it myself, these
photos are borrowed from Kroforce cosplay, and it illustrates the potential in
armor building. Use a sharp knife, stencils found online and glue
together with hot glue or contact glue. To prevent paint from cracking cover it
with wood glue or plasti dip.

Worbla.

This is the
darling of the cosplay world at the moment. You can use this thermoplastic material to make
almost everything from armors to sculpting. The down side is that it is a
little expensive, but it is very easy to work with and very durable. I forgot the Adjutant helmet out on my veranda in February during a rainstorm over night and it didn't break.

How to work with worbla

The most
known way is the sandwich method. One layer of worbla, craft foam in between
and another layer of worbla. This makes very sturdy parts and you can find several tutorials on Kamui's page. I wanted to test if it was possible to use less worbla, and made the Vi chest armor with just one
layer. It works, and is much more flexible, but can get very wobbly if you are not very careful when building.

But you can
also use one layer of worbla and stiffen it up with cardboard instead of craft foam, as I had done on
the Adjutant Helmet.

Tools

You cut
it using a scissors and shape it using a heat gun. When warm the glue within the material is activated
and it sticks to itself perfectly. Add more details directly to your piece. And
there you have it.

Paint TimeTo
bring our props to life, a great paint job can really elevate your cosplay, and
here are a few more tips for you.How to paint?

There are
endless ways to paint and many different brands and types.

But it is
always a good idea to prime your prop first. This will give you an even color to make the true
colors pop. It can also be used smooth out the surface. Gesso
is the name of one primer.

Spray paint
gives an even surface, and many thin layers is the way to go. Work only in a
well-ventilated area!

But beware,
to not spray paint Styrofoam! Maybe you have spent 40 hours carving out the
perfect sword and it is finally time to paint. Then spray-paint will melt it!
Either prime it first with glue or filler. Or use
acrylic paint.Acrylic paint is a great way to paint, you will bet brush strokes, but it is way easier to get paint in every
crease with a brush. Or you can use a sponge and stipple the paint on, gives a
great gradient hue.

But a base
paint isn’t everything. Using several techniques can bring out the realism and depth of you prop. These two gloves were painted with the exact same base paint.

Highlight, shading, weathering

These are
three methods to make prop paint pop. Weathering is the process to make it look like
your prop have been used (gotten dirty, scratches, paint flaking) Mix a darker acrylic paint with water and smear it over your prop. Make sure to
get it in every crack.

Shading,
means adding darker paint (also watered out) at any low point to bring out
depth.

And high
light means adding a light color to any high points (to create fake lighting).
Can also use silver marker to “scratch” away paint from weapons and armor to create battle damage.

Painting worbla

A quick
guide to painting worbla. The surface often is very rough and you need to prime
it, and we are talking about 10 layers of gesso or 4 layers of wood glue. You
can’t sand wood glue, so if you need to sand, go for gesso.

Then I spray
painted a base color. Then I added a very thin layer of silver spray (a way of
highlighting, since it will only hit high points). Added a new
gold base paint. Smeared it with brown acrylic paint to get a weathered look. Also
added black paint in every scratch (low point). And last
added silver along side the scratches to highlight the edges.

Special effects.

I love to
do something extra with my props, add a wow-factor, and many of the contestants at DreamHack had done exactly this. Lights

Adding lights
are a great way to do that, and not really that difficult to implement. You
need a battery and a circuit (wired) going from + to – And on this circuit you
place what you want to be powered by the battery, like a LED. The thing about
LED is that you have to attach it the correct way, the long leg is the positive
side, and you have to make the current go inn there. From battery from to LED +.
Also LED can burn out if applied too high voltage. You need to attach a
resistor. You can find calculator for this online.

Or if you
don’t want to make your own circuit, then use a el-wire (all ready with battery
pack) or a flash light.

Smoke

How about
we take to another level. We can add smoke in a con friendly way. (Fire
is usually not allowed.)

You have your circuit (battery and wires) and we can place anything we like on it. I wanted steam for my gloves. I found out that you can buy smoke on a can for testing smoke alarms. Ok, now I need a way to activate it without using my hands. A helicopter rotor, also known as a servo, can be used. Problem is that you need a device to “tell” the servo which position the blade is going to stand in, so I needed a servo tester. Wire it up, and we have steam.

How the steam works

Sound

Last
wow-factor is sound. And here you don’t need to wire at all. Buy a stand alone
mini speaker that runs on batteries. And if you build you prop in a way so you
can take the speaker out, then you can reuse it for several different prop
(making it a less expensive investment per prop) just hook it to you phone and
play off music or other sound effects.

Bonus LevelsThese are a few extra topics I added if we had time in the end of the presentation. Molding, casting and latexFor more details photos and steps on how to make special effect makeup and a Liara head piece see this tutorial.

All about me:

Hello, I’m Christina also known as Chrix Design. I’m a software tester by day, costume maker by night. Most of my life I have been a little "know it all" and very creative. This evolved into me being a science nerd as a child as well as I sewed my own Barbie clothes. In the end I got a Master’s degree in Industrial design engineering. My childhood was also full of video games and my first prop came together mainly because I wanted a Portal Gun over my fireplace. I exploited every occasion to dress up and loved making more and more original costumes. It wasn't until 2011 I heard about cosplay, where had it been all my life! I got so many friends with the same passions for games, costumes, craft and books as me. After this I had no more spare time, there was always a costume to build a tutorial to write and new friends to meet. But I won’t say no to a round of Halo, an evening of board games or watching old Disney movies.
You can contact me at chrix.design.props@gmail.com or via my facebook page.